Aircraft Down, A story about the
P-38 Lightning in WWII

Telling the stories of 6 separate evasion episodes in Europe in WWII,
featuring the P-38 Lightning

Flying a P-38 Lightning took special skills. This twin engine Warbird was a
fantastic WW2 fighter. This book covers military aircraft of WWII
of the USAAF, which is now the USAF. This book covers the USAAF pilots
that crashed behind enemy lines with their efforts to evade the enemy and
about the people who helped these men. This book was described as
gripping, the readers book reviews reported as they couldn't put the book
down. The book reviews report a five star rating.

The
P-38 lightning was built by
Lockheed during WW2. The P-38 is 37' 10" long and has a wingspan
of 52' 0". The P-38 lightning used two Allison V-1710-27/29 engines
each having 1150 hp giving the airplane 2300 hp total. The max speed
of the P-38 is 395 mph.There are many versions of this plane, these
specs cover only one version.

A USAF
Pilot Evades Capture in WW2 Europe

I found this book gives a lot of insight
to evaders and some of the less well known facts of the war. The book has
a fairly fast pace but also has a lot of detail. The first three stories
deal with downed flyers in France and Belgium who eventually made
it to Spain and then British held Gibraltar. Spain was sympathetic
to Germany, and treated evaders harshly until 1943 when it became
politically necessary for them to develop a better relationship with the
Allies.

The fourth story is of a later evader
in Belgium who was able to meet the oncoming Allies in 1944 instead
of going to Spain. The fifth story details the evasion of an entire bomber
crew from the island of Corfu over to Albania. They stayed at a guerilla
camp in the mountains and eventually escaped by ship to Italy after
much hardship. The final story is of of a flyer who evaded through
Italy. Originally captured by the Germans upon landing, he was released
from jail with many others when Italy signed an armistice with the
allies. He spent the rest of his time evading the Germans and traveling
around Italy (with much help from Italian partisans) and finally
escaping to the Allied lines after many setbacks.

One of the central themes of the book
is the sacrifice made by the occupied population to feed and help the Allied
fliers escape. Every story has a follow-up at the end about the later
life of the evader and what happened to the people that helped them evade
(if known).